You are Anonymous. The sky is stars, the ground is water, and everything is totally, absolutely fine. Things couldn’t be any better, really.
“I’m dead, aren’t I,” you state calmly. “I’m dead and this is Hell.”
You behold a pale white horse. It’s name is Princess Celestia and she is standing a few paces in front of you. She lightly brushes a golden clad hoof against the non-water ground.
“No, you are not dead.”
Seeing that ever present, dopey smile on her face makes you wish that she actually had tried to gnaw off your face. At least it would have been slightly more bearable than pretending you care enough to be on your best behavior. You normally save that level of premeditated heedfulness for church on Sunday but Equestria doesn't have any of those. Churches, not Sundays. They definitely have Sundays here and they are four hours longer than any other day of the week for some unknown reason, which will remain unknown because you can't be bothered to ask anyone. You’re sure the purple Book Princess, who moved up from number two to the number one spot of your ’Top Ten Worst Princesses’ list for having magically murdered you, would love to flap her noise hole at you for hours extolling the virtues of extended daylight hours but there isn’t enough liquor left in your cabinet for doing that and you just don’t want to give her your attention which she often desperately craves.
“ ‘Kay. Just checking.”
She wiggles an ear. “Please remind me, which one was hell? Is that the cloudy one, with the trumpet playing, flying humans who wear the white togas?”, she asks.
“Yeah, sure. Hell has an angel.” Which is technically correct. And technically correct is the best kind of correct. Your favorite documentary about a pizza delivery-boy in the future taught you that.
You jam your hands into the pockets of your jeans. You dont find anything in them. No keys, no cell phone, no wallet, no vape pen, and no pocket knife. You didn’t even your trusty fidget spinner. Which is a good thing because you’re still totally calm and don’t need to spin your fidget right about now.
You reiterate your question from earlier in an easier to understand fashion so her smooth girl brain can understand. “And you still haven’t told me what those thing are.” You point at the floating rectangles behind the horse woman by raising your head a little and thrusting your chin in their general direction.
Her right ear does a wiggle in a similar way the left one did moments ago. You’re totally not jealous of her ear wiggling ability. That would be, just, something something something... You don’t have to justify yourself to anyone, least of all, to yourself.
The pale horse straightens up, “Very well. We,” she waves a wing in a circular motion, “are in the Ascended Realm. You,” she points the same wing at you, “are here because you have accomplished many great deeds and have been deemed worthy.” She curls the same wing, impossibly, somehow, to point at herself. You’re pretty sure wings have bones in them and bones don’t bend, like, at all. Your best friend’s parents getting them a trampoline for their tenth birthday taught you that.
She continues, “And I am here to guide you.” The Princess folds her wing back up against her side. She probably had that whole speech memorized. You're trapped here with the Princess of being over-prepared and you think that’s just fucking dandy.
You point indiscriminately at several new shapes emerging from the misty, perpetual void in which you both currently reside, to ask the most relevant question that has pushed its way from the brilliant depths of your beautiful mind to grace your luscious, kissable lips.
“What about those floaty square things behind you?” You ask a third time. She has to answer you now. Those are the rules. Your favorite documentary about cryogenically frozen British spies from the nineteen-sixties taught you that. Being all aloof and shit doesn’t make any of this more exciting or go any faster. You would stamp your foot to display your rising anger but acting like a Karen wouldn't help you in this situation.
The top of your top-ten worst princesses must also know the rule about answering a question if it has been asked three times because she finally answers you. “Each one of those,” she bends her neck and flips her head to briefly look to her right side at a floaty window thingy, “are viewports to your memories, Anonymous.”
“Those crazy hover windows show my memories?” You are going to be seeing a lot of porn in a little bit. Like, several years worth of porn. You’re fine with that but you worry about the poor horse woman. You’re probably going to have the explain why the humans are doing things to each other and themselves. You can’t help but smile a little at that thought.
She nods, “Correct. As we walk along, each viewport will show us the great deed you have accomplished.”
“So, this isn’t a trial?” you ask. “And this isn’t some sort of intervention?”
She shakes her head, “Not as of such.”
“Cool beans. Then I’d rather skip all this.” You’ve seen all of this porn already, anyway. “Could you send me back, please?” Manners are important to you and so is knowing when to use them to manipulate people.
“I cannot send you back as I did not bring you here. The only way for you to leave is to Ascend.”
“What a load of horse sh- nonsense.” You catch yourself from making an accidental pun in front of the talking horse. Puns are the worst, shortly followed by mimes. A mime somehow making a pun would probably kill you dead, or make you wish that you were.
In your head, all the dominoes line up, as the last puzzle piece falls into place. “If the only way to leave is to ascend, then how are you going leave?” Checkmate.
“It’s not nonsense. Your being in this place brought me here and your ascending here will let me leave.” And just like that, all your dominoes fall like a house of cards. Board games were never really your thing. You were more of the type to sit outside the local gas station and sip brightly colored slush drinks out of domed plastic cups.
“So, the windows are my memories,” you state the obvious. “What about that crib over there?”
You brutally stab a finger at the air in the general direction of that way over there to point at a wooden child’s crib next to a small pile of colorful children’s toys.
“Is that supposed to represent my childhood? Or something I have to look forward to in my future?” You wiggle your eyebrows up and down in a suggestive manner. Suggesting that you and your lovely Applejack will finally get together and have a kid of your own. Then when your first kid is born you’ll promptly step out to have a vape and never return, leaving her alone to raise a child by herself. You don’t see the problem in it. That’s how your mom raised you and you turned out totally fine.
But white privilege princess rips that bandaid off quickly. “Oh no, nothing of the sort. Not long ago, during a time of national emergency in the Crystal Empire, Princess Cadance couldn’t find somepony quickly enough to mind little Flurry Heart, so she placed her in here with Shining Armor, to be safe.”
“So, Cadance can come and go, but for us to leave I have to ascend? Why can’t we leave the same way she did?” If this place had any smell it would probably smell like a trap and maybe a forgotten diaper. You’re here alone with the big horse woman and you’re about to go through your memories. She is going to be seeing some frightfully scary stuff in here and she is probably going to panic and start kicking because that’s what horses do. If only you had your trusty, Swiss Army pocket knife. You’re not sure what you would do with it, but you’ve seen YouTube videos of people recapping news stories of men taking down full grown grizzly bear with nothing but their car keys. You’re pretty sure you could take a single horse with a pocket knife, easily. But, sadly you don’t have your trusty knife, just your wits and your words.
“We did not arrive the same way. There are many doors to arrive here, but they must also be the exits. One entrance can not be interchanged for an exit of another.”
That’s a load of horse shit, you think. “That’s a load of horse sh- nanagans,” you say.
“That may be so, but it doesn’t make it any less true.” She turns from you, toward the closest window and walks away. “Please follow me as there will be much for us to see.”
You don’t really want to tag along with the ex-Princess because it involves your mortal enemy, walking, but you follow after Princess clip-clop anyway. The whole time, wishing with all your heart, that you were back in your cozy little cottage near the Ghastly Gorge flyway, or anywhere else but here. But someone has to babysit her ex-royal whiteness and make sure she doesn’t stick her giant horse nose where it doesn’t belong. Since you’re already here, that person might as well be you.